LOCKE, JOHN (1632-1704), English philosopher, was born on Aug. 29, 1632, at Wrington, Somersetshire. His father, a small landowner and attorney, was a strict but genial Puritan and fought on the parliamentary side in the Civil War. The relations between father and son were ideal, and left their mark on Locke's educational theory. In 1646 he entered Westminster school. Probably the warnings in the Thoughts on Education against learn ing by rote and against beginning the study of languages by gram mar were suggested by his own experiences at school. In 1652 he entered Christ church, Oxford, then under John Owen, the Puritan dean and vice-chancellor of the university. For some years after he entered, Oxford was ruled by the Independents, who were among the first in England to advocate religious toleration. But Locke's hereditary sympathy with the Puritans was gradually lessened by the intolerance of the Presbyterians and the fanaticism of the Independents, and he had no use for the scholastic phi losophy still taught at Oxford. In 166o he was serving as tutor of Christ Church, lecturing in Greek, rhetoric and philosophy. The works of Descartes gave him a relish for philosophy, although he of ten differed from them. We find him experimenting in chem istry in 1663, also in meteorology, in which he was always inter ested. Locke's religious disposition attracted him to theology, but as there was no place for free enquiry in the Anglican Church after the Restoration, he decided on medicine as a profession. Then began his friendship with Robert Boyle and with Sydenham. Sydenham adopted empirical methods in medicine, just as Boyle did in chemistry, and Locke, during his very short experience of medicine, frequently accompanied Sydenham on his rounds.
In 1666, soon after his return from accompanying Sir Walter Vane on his mission to the elector of Brandenburg, Locke met Lord Ashley, afterwards first earl of Shaftesbury. This was the beginning of a lasting friendship, sustained by common sym pathy with liberty—civil, religious and philosophical. In 1667 he moved to Exeter House, Lord Ashley's London residence, to be come his confidential secretary. Although he retained his student ship at Christ church, he found a home with Shaftesbury for 15 years.
Locke's commonplace books throw welcome light on the his tory of his mind in early life. A paper on the "Roman Common wealth" which belongs to this period, expresses convictions about religious liberty and the relations of religion to the State that were modified and deepened afterwards; objections to the sacerdotal conception of Christianity appear in another article ; short work is made of ecclesiastical claims to infallibility in the interpretation of Scripture in a third; a scheme of utilitarian ethics, wider than that of Hobbes, is suggested in a fourth. The most significant of
those early revelations is the Essay concerning Toleration (1666), which anticipates conclusions more fully argued nearly 3o years later.
At Exeter House Locke held informal reunions to discuss de batable questions in science and theology. One of these, in 1670, is historically memorable. "Five or six friends," he says, were discussing "principles of morality and religion. They found them selves quickly at a stand by the difficulties that arose on every side." Locke proposed to attempt some criticism of the neces sary "limits of human understanding," and fancied that "one sheet of paper" might suffice. What was thus "begun by chance, was continued by entreaty, written by incoherent parcels, and, after long intervals of neglect, resumed again as humour and oc casions permitted." In 1690, the issue was given to the world as the Essay Concerning Human Understanding.
The fall of Shaftesbury in 1675 drove Locke from English political circles to France, where he spent three years, partly at Montpellier and partly in Paris.
In Paris he met men of science and letters—Peter Guenellon, the well-known Amsterdam physician; Ole Romer, the Danish astronomer ; Thoynard, the critic ; Melchisedech Thevenot, the traveller; Henri Justel, the jurist ; and Francois Bernier, the ex positor of Gassendi. But there is no mention of Malebranche, whose Recherche de la verite had appeared three years before, nor of Arnauld. In 1679 Locke resumed his old relations with Shaftes bury, at Thanet House in Aldersgate, London. It was a time of plots and counterplots, and in the end Shaftesbury was committed to the Tower, tried and acquitted. More insurrectionary plots followed in 1682, after which, suspected at home, the versatile statesman escaped to Holland, and died at Amsterdam in Jan. 1683. In these two years Locke was much at Oxford and in Somerset, for the later activities of Shaftesbury did not commend themselves to him. The letters of Prideaux and of John Fell show that Locke was suspected at court. Correspondence with his Somerset friend, Edward Clarke, of Chipley, describes Locke's life in those troubled years, and reveals the opening of his inti mate intercourse with the Cudworth family. The letters allude to toleration in the State and comprehension in the Church, and show an indifference to theological dogma.